


Born for New Things

by Etnoe



Category: Homestuck
Genre: M/M, Metamorphosis, Meteorstuck, Size Difference
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-21
Updated: 2012-03-21
Packaged: 2017-11-02 07:29:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/366488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Etnoe/pseuds/Etnoe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As the meteor journey nears its end, Gamzee's the first to begin the metamorphosis that will give him his adult form. Everyone expects this to end terribly, but things look like they might just turn out fine...</p><p>Yeah, right. Like Karkat's going to buy that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Born for New Things

**Author's Note:**

> This fic would have been for [Porn Battle 13](http://oxoniensis.dreamwidth.org/46205.html), using the prompt "Gamzee Makara/Karkat Vantas, sleepy, size difference", but apparently I really can't write comment-length anything.

* * *

  
"So you're the size of a house now." Dave looked at the ruptured crater of the cocoon, up to Gamzee blinking sluggishly at the rim. His jaw set squarer. "What's the deal with that."  
  
Karkat felt his teeth clenching the same way. "Life, the universe, and everything hate us. _That's_ the deal. Don't pretend you haven't noticed."  
  
"Here I thought the size of this thing was just another example of the symbiotic drama bug trolls require shoved up their asses in order to function. Didn't think he was actually going to fucking fill it up."  
  
Gamzee stared with his (huge) eyes wide - briefly, and then he winced and shielded them with one (giant) hand even though the lights in the block and the hallway had been left off. His eyes were filled-in indigo, though the shade was pastel, filmy with newness.  
  
He turned stiffly to look at the others, Kanaya - whose glow made him wince again - Terezi, the Mayor and Serenity, Rose, and then back to Dave. He stared in astonishment. "Look at that."  
  
"Don't blame you if you still can't take all the Strider glory in. Even bigger purple people-eaters have tried, crashed and burned."  
  
"Hey." It looked like Gamzee was going to climb out, but then he glooped further down into the biochemical stew of his cocoon. "You want to spar?"  
  
Karkat drew up onto the balls of his feet with his fists lifting; as if there was anything he could fight off. That was not like Gamzee. " _Interesting_ ," said Terezi, and sniffed with the force of some vast cosmic vacuum cleaner to get more details.  
  
"You don't ask that way. Asking isn't even a thing that happens." An eyebrow showed over one lens of Dave's sunglasses. "Still got marks from your last shy and retiring suggestion, you delicate blossom, you."  
  
"That's good, I motherfucking guess." Not remotely as certain as he ought to sound!  
  
Rose gave in to the Seer's inherent need to dissect, interest getting her eyes to damn near gleam like she'd grown out of being diurnal in the last two minutes. "Is the metamorphosis supposed to decrease violent tendencies? That's not at all the assumption I picked up from you all."  
  
"No, not even close," Karkat said. "How would you run an empire structured around intergalactic conquest that way? Or that's what I would have thought." He crossed his arms tight. "It's not like we have much to go on but memories of the puberty-oriented propaganda and our copy of The Octocular Asshole's Guide to Getting Laid." He mentally went over everything relevant he'd noted from Mindfang's diary. "Shit, wasn't it the Condesce's MO to act really sweet before calling a major culling?"  
  
"Gamzee! Do you feel like hugging anyone ... _to death_?" Terezi skipped over to bump Dave with a hip, and then tap his cheek with her cane for good measure.  
  
"Don't even joke," said Dave, and Gamzee held up his hands. "I won't even joke, bro."  
  
"There's no need to worry, as there never has been." Kanaya stood with arms crossed and fingers tapping rapidly on an elbow, all day-glow resplendence. "I can still take him."  
  
"My most monstrous sis." Gamzee took a deep breath, closing his eyes, and let it out with a growing smile. "I think you're right about the worry. It's looking like a thing that doesn't need to get at anybody."  
  
It was the Mayor that got them to snap out of waiting for the other executioner's axe to drop. He clambered up the buttery-coloured cocoon, extended a hand and welcomed Gamzee back to wakefulness. Gamzee tapped his fingers against the tiny palm and then heaved himself up, and god _damn_ those biceps were thicker than thighs. Luckily the Mayor provided another distraction in the way he eyed the limey-indigo, viscous mysteriousness in the cocoon.  
  
"Do not fucking eat that!" Karkat yelled, and then everything felt normal enough that they could get on with things. They threw towels and a human bed sheet to Gamzee, then waited outside as he got cleaned and covered up to go with him to the ablution block.  
  
He shivered visibly when he stepped out the door. "Cold."  
  
Karkat stepped up against his side - not even clearing Gamzee's shoulder, and finding it suddenly disconcerting how easily he'd moved closer - and put an arm around him.  
  
It set off another shiver, but Gamzee smiled and put an arm around him too; damp and heavy, smelling of chemical ferment that tasted sharp at the back of the mouth. He was quieter than normal and moved stiff and slow, especially with the way he got distracted by staring at himself. Mostly what he did was to look too fucking much like that fucking picture in the diary.  
  
The Grand Highblood watched everyone orbit him as they walked, shifting position to keep him in sight. The Grand Highblood could straighten in the main corridors of the lab and his horns would avoid scraping the ceiling by probably less than a half-metre. As they waited for him outside the ablution block and the remaining trolls went silent and fidgety, Karkat wondered if the other two also felt that the Grand Highblood's silhouette had registered as something bizarrely easy to disbelieve; an image nagging at half-used senses, telling of nightmares that used to be shared on a planet he used to rule.  
  
Then the Grand Highblood walked out of the ablution block in a half-assed toga decorated with nakodiles, damp hair plastered over his unscarred face in little curly licks. He let the Mayor glom onto his wrist and lead the way to the pre-prepared recovery block, and the Grand Highblood smiled like it was two sweeps ago and he'd just peeled his face out of a pie so he could wave to the webcam.  
  
Okay, so Gamzee looked a lot like mildly inventive agony - he was currently chill. Karkat took a deep breath and tried to stop staring. And maybe they should keep his hair short. It looked easier to manage.  
  
The recovery block had been prepped with food and water, and a pile made up of blankets, plushes, pillows, and because these things could never actually be comfortable, one-wheel device parts. Terezi had been bored enough to do a mural on one wall, mostly executed criminals and swathes of colour determined by deliciousness. Gamzee took it in and beamed at her; she tilted her head in an expressively considering gesture and grinned back.  
  
The others were easing up on the way they watched Gamzee too. Karkat felt another fragment of relief sliding in place. Any minute now he might stop twitching.  
  
"So does baby want another sword chew-toy?" Dave said, watching Gamzee clamber right into the pile. "Or do you not need more metal in your diet now that 'Stephen King's IT: The Hatchening' is behind us?"  
  
"Hand one over, sir knight," said Gamzee, and the up-and-down of his voice stayed at ease, as even as it ever got. He resumed staring at Dave in wonder. "Some shitbit of pig-sticker wouldn't go amiss. In fact, motherfucking thanks."  
  
"Yeah, 'tis an honour, yon large-ass lyricist. Is that period-appropriate, Lalonde?" Dave handed over one of his broken swords - daring to hold the _hilt_ to Gamzee, which would have meant he deserved every finger lost but Rose wouldn't like it; except that Gamzee lifted the blade gingerly, _gently_ from his hand. Dave and Gamzee looked as bemused as everybody else, and both of them relieved.  
  
Karkat grabbed a plate of spawn cakes off the food table. "Have real food, actually intended for ingestion first," he said, marching over - and Gamzee didn't even make a crack about Dave's throat. He just put the sword down.  
  
"That smells like righteously vicious deliciousness." Gamzee grabbed the plate, and then grabbed him. The hand practically spanned Karkat's forearm and the touch was carefully loose. "Shit, brother." His gaze trundled along Karkat's arm up to his face. "It has been a while."  
  
"You were in a semi-soluble state. You don't even know." Gamzee did still have one faint scar on his face. The pile looked like the most inviting thing Karkat had seen all sweep. "Even showed up in dream bubbles as a cocoon. Now eat, and I'll get you water."  
  
Gamzee hovered over the cakes and took very careful bites. "Break the tension immediately," Karkat said, watching over his shoulder as he went back to the table. "You are feeling okay, right? And tell us if there's anything we should prepare for about pupation."  
  
"I am feeling _motherfucking nothing_."  
  
Surely, in another world, those were words that induced mass panic. But Gamzee just sounded happy.  
  
Karkat gripped the glass of water in lieu of being able to grab Gamzee until only quiet and sighs came out. It stifled the stupid tremors in his hands, which was nice - then his stomach did such violently acrobatic back flips that he froze a second when Gamzee snagged the glass. His reach was nearly _doubled_ now.  
  
"All that fucking fuss!" Gamzee, smiling faintly, shook his head. "All of that half-fucking-finished physical drivel tugging up on my strings from the inside, just like what all of you three still got—" He grinned at the other trolls. It looked like he was talking about miracles, but he was lucid and clear-voiced. "All that bone-creaking and itch-teething and aw, you know, that real fucking _feelings shit_ —it has _gone_ and I'm all up and having _calm_ with me, feeling nothing like as rowdy as all of what was being crowded up in me before and it is. The _bitchinest tits imaginable_!"  
  
"No come on you did not just act like that is seriously an acceptable phrase to use ever," said Dave, whose survival instinct would never beat his mouth. "Uh. But—"  
  
"Can't hardly fucking feel it." Gamzee put the glass on the floor to cup one of Karkat's hands between massive palms. "Anything, bro, I don't got but the twitchiest little care if that motherfucker's here. It's all newness bright right down up in the centre of me, and I don't got to look to get a hop on to any beat but what I want..."  
  
Karkat gripped his fingers. "Would you wait until we're alone? Show some fucking decency!"  
  
"Everyone, everyone," Terezi stage-whispered. "That was a hint!"  
  
"Was not!" Karkat said, going for a snarl and instead whining, taking her seriously on reflex when he'd learned long ago that it mostly resulted in deserved humiliation. He put his free hand to his face. "No, I mean, sure. Good plan. Go relax, or whatever."  
  
"Us two getting into proper faceflapping would be a bitching thing," Gamzee agreed, and the others said their goodbyes. Terezi had a quick question, worrying about her 'sight' after pupation, and asked how long it had taken to clean the sharp-smelling cocoon goo from his nose. She encouraged him to give details, grinning wider the more Rose gracefully pretended to have lost hearing. Kanaya deigned to say she'd come around tomorrow and take measurements for his new clothes, and Gamzee offered her a snack in compensation. It was the best that could be hoped for. Even if it was unsettling that he was willing to let her at his throat so soon.  
  
Karkat pulled the food table closer to the pile for ease of access, staying quiet until the door shut behind the others. Then they were alone, which was the point but also had an edge of weird about it. Gamzee, Grand Highblood. Berserker or ... god knows.  
  
"So the puberty switch flipped and your hormones settled down?" Karkat asked. "Here I thought I might never see another small mercy up close. Are you going to back off Dave's bulge now, finally and embarrassingly belatedly? And have some of that water."  
  
Gamzee gulped a few mouthfuls. "Well. If the motherfucker offers. But who cares?" He shrugged and looked uplifted; also smug.  
  
"It makes that much of a difference?" Karkat became aware of his own body as he asked, its aches and restless energy. The twitches were going strong. He suppressed a snarl and watched Gamzee staring at his own hands, spreading the fingers and making fists.  
  
"I'm all new. I'm all difference. And here we'd all been up and thinking we already knew me, and how it'd be." He looked a little relieved. "But it's not that at all."  
  
Karkat stared at his expression with his own relief, then twitched himself out of it. "Well. Good," he said, trying not to sound anything but supportive and believing. Pile-parts had been left scattered around the room as a relatively discreet way of allowing them the option of making a two-seater, so Karkat started collecting plushes and pillows and adding to the pile. "You haven't missed much around here - Sollux's nutrient binge inspiring him to fold time, space, and magic to come find a Smuppet to gnaw is still, and can only remain the highlight of this trip, and you were here for that."  
  
He paused to eye the construction of the pile and begrudgingly acknowledged that the one-wheel device parts gave a stable framework. Which was probably going to stab them in their sleep. Truly the forces that directed piling were more incomprehensible than even metamorphosis. "We still have no fucking clue how he'll half-pupate, or ghost-pupate, or whatever," he continued, going back to gathering. "But he remains, I'm sure this will shock you, okay with it. What is it about doom, anyway? Aradia should be fine. Even if it is weird to go through that kind of thing in Squid God Central, but whatever, it's her chirpy gothique party. Mostly we're all still working on finalising the breach into the humans' Scratched session, setting up necessities."  
  
"You ain't sleeping," Gamzee said.  
  
"Why didn't you tell us _immediately_ that pupating increases powers of observation tenfold? And you're waist deep in a pile and you aren't sleeping either!"  
  
He shrugged. "Kind of tired, but I've been as good as sleeping for so long. Got too much me going on for me to be before all going to shut any eyes of mine."  
  
"Shut up. Slow down, think—" Karkat walked over and stepped up onto the heap. "At any cost prevent your ramblings from taking these flying loop-de-loops round the block." He pulled off the blanket on Gamzee's head, peered at his face and finger-combed the damp hair away to investigate the hairline. "And you only have two normal eyes, so don't talk like you came back with vision multi-fold. Just thinking of shit Vriska pulled gives me the creeps."  
  
Gamzee shook his head to get rid of Karkat's hand and gave it a nearly wary look, but he just said, "You didn't know her back before all of the body parts blowing up merry-go-round, did you?"  
  
"Terezi told me stuff. Did it hurt or something when I did that?" Karkat wriggled his fingers. "Your skin's that sensitive? What I wouldn't fucking give for concrete information on this literal physiological meltdown!"  
  
"Not _that_ sensitive. But any tactility is feeling realer, same as all the light's zapping round all brighter. Now get down here," Gamzee said, placidly firm. "Bet you didn't get any shut for your own eyes all that time I was in my growth cone. So sleep. Now, bro."  
  
Karkat froze. He still had a Scalemate in hand from collecting pile-parts, and part of his brain turned over the idea of making himself that vulnerable to an adult and told him to eat the plush, choke, and die from that instead. Since when did Gamzee give orders? Or did any scrap of forcefulness register as a red alert now that he was all teeth and horns and fully-realised growth?  
  
He jammed the Scalemate into the pile - _Dear deplorable meat sack that props up my consciousness: Don't think I didn't notice you trying to put me on level with Sollux 'Plush-Muncher' Captor_ \- and rubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes. Now that he'd been reminded of his lack of sleep they felt gritty and hot. It had been necessary and downright easy to stay awake during their session, but on the asteroid there were no imperatives, things drifting until the next dream bubble or sunshine surprise that Rose saw for them. He'd stayed awake anyway. "If I get on this thing, we're not going to talk much. I'll probably pass out in a fucking minute."  
  
In significant silence Gamzee dragged himself out of the pile so he could put an arm round Karkat's shoulders and draw him down. Karkat dug a wheel out from an awkward spot, pulled a blanket loose, and drew it over himself as he lay. Settling in made Gamzee strain away with a reflexive wince, and then made him hold on tighter. And that, finally, was fucking perfectly familiar.  
  
Fragments of relief, pieced together since Serenity blinked out a message that the cocoon was opening, set into solid peace as Karkat set his head on Gamzee's shoulder. He moved gently to get comfortable, and then lay quiet. Now he picked up distant echoes through the metal and stone of the lab; maybe some of the others were working off energy by sparring.  
  
"Tell us more tomorrow about the pupation process. Kanaya and Terezi had lots more questions. Me too, when I can think again," Karkat said. Looking Gamzee over from this close was like looking at a landscape, dips and rises going on and on. The toga had shifted enough to show three deep creases along his stomach, bringing up an image of him curled in the cocoon for all those weeks. He reached over to pull Gamzee's free arm closer to inspect the few, faded scars left on it. Careful as he was, it made Gamzee shift skittishly. "Find alive Sollux and Aradia when you do sleep, tell them stuff too."  
  
"Oh. Well. The whole thing, it's all good. Like what I was saying all of before." He sounded like he was thinking it over, though, nervous now. "Pretty much. Yeah. Whoa."  
  
"From everybody else's point of view, it's a plunge into an inescapable abyss where you basically turn into a cheap set of Troll Lego. Just answer whatever, the questions." He thumbed a faint mark on Gamzee's lower arm; that burn used to be so clear. "Also sound less like a fanatic."  
  
"Yeah, uh, that's being a sure thing, but right now, though." Gamzee wriggled away, setting off a pillow and gear avalanche. "What's got to be happening here is you making your own pile."  
  
"Wait, say what?" Karkat said, still automatically reaching after him.  
  
Say nothing; instead shove your moirail heels over horns to the ground.  
  
Karkat was on his feet and shouting before he stopped being dizzy. "You invited me! What the fuck? Is this delayed-action loss of shit or are—?" He bit his lip against the waver in his voice. "What the fuck!"  
  
"You don't even really want to know. " Gamzee was changing position fast, shifting his legs. "There was serious underestimation happening at my thinkpan location. When I said I was all being more sensitive at present ... ha, well." He pointed at his crotch. Karkat _looked_.  
  
There wasn't actually anything to see but blankets Gamzee had pulled up, but Karkat clapped his hands over his eyes anyway. "No, seriously fucking no! What? I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING!"  
  
"I know, right, motherfuck. But it's just reactive, bro, you know, the way of how things sometimes get when you're all feeling ... keyed up... Hey." It was too much to expect that he'd wind down because of self-consciousness. Instead he sounded knowing. "That's a lot of colour a brother's face has got to wearing."  
  
Also a lot of breath not to be breathing, a lot of _fellow feeling_ he could do without... In an internal protest of innocence, his mind was running through a catalogue of things he'd hardly done - just a sigh against Gamzee's skin, hair brushing his face, only tugging the sheet down by accident - and the idea of those tiny touches cast in this new light made prickles surge frantically up his skin.  
  
His reddened face returned to its true home, his palms. "Sorry."  
  
" _Your_ hormones are still being all over the place, isn't that the way?"  
  
"Fine, rub it in, I'm even more switch-flip bulgejump than you." Karkat turned away. "See you tomorrow. Sorry."  
  
"Got a better idea." Gamzee's voice dropped. "You want to?"  
  
Karkat kept walking but couldn't convince himself to uncover his eyes completely. He mimed enclosure talons all the more vigorously for using one hand. "You know my feelings about '"extended" perfectly platonic bro bulge bumps'! Twice was pushing it enough!"  
  
"You're the one who's got so much feeling for calling it that. I'm more for up and calling it, just, whatever the fuck could be good, going by physical kinds of feelings."  
  
The door - that was a positive sign in this dawning farce. Karkat grabbed the handle. "Take this opportunity to wallow in your renewed soul, and we'll talk tomorrow. I'll get up early."  
  
"Nah, you're going to be catching all up on sleep. Remember? I said that already."  
  
As odd as it was to hear him sound commanding, he was reassuringly shit at it. "Yeah, I'll catch up in my own block." So leave. Turn the handle. Shut up. "Call me if you need to. I'll put my Trollian alert on loud."  
  
"Come at me, bro," Gamzee said sagely.  
  
"Are you likely to put that thing away first? It's probably twice the size that you used to be as a whole."  
  
"Are you likely to be up and leaving?"  
  
Karkat crossed his arms. He turned to slump against the door and looked strictly at the floor. "I'll make another pile since you're that..." Blood flooded back to his face, making him look a liar. "Sensitive. Shove over some of that stuff."  
  
"All good with that, if it's how you want it. But you missed me." Like the best surprise Gamzee had expected all along. "That's all that's worth worrying at right here. If we're all up in a mutuality of being good to get the motherfuck down to it, then why fucking not?"  
  
'You missed me' was a trifling phrase to base anything of consequence on. It didn't cover to proper effect the fact that it had been reasonable to spend weeks thinking _Gamzee might never get out of that fucking cocoon._ He stared at Gamzee and held his own elbows to stop his hands from feeling empty.  
  
So Karkat marched to the pile. Logistics stopped him short at the foot of it, and he sneered at Gamzee putting out a would-be imperious hand to get him closer, and then took off his sweater. Next, his shirt. "This is stupid," he said, reminding the universe he was on to it.  
  
"Relax, bro. Maybe do a little dancing for the mood." Gamzee fell back in snickers and Karkat undid his trousers.  
  
"You make it _immeasurably more so_." And easier to not think about undressing. He stepped out of his underwear and climbed on the pile. Gamzee pulled him to sit between his legs, and Karkat pulled the toga-sheet away as he went.  
  
The damn thing was nearly the size of his own unsheathed bulge and it wasn't all the way out yet. Karkat did not grimace. He did not crack a round of painfully awful jokes like someone handing out cheap carbonated intoxicant, though it too could be considered traditional in marking the union of poor choices and fumbling. He got up on his knees and put an arm around Gamzee's neck, pressing close to let the soft tip of Gamzee's bulge start sliding up his abdomen as he massaged its base.  
  
"WhatifIhurtyou?" Gamzee said.  
  
"Truly a fascinating puzzle to put forth _now_. Just fucking don't!"  
  
"Feelsgood." They both rocked as he drew a breath. "Oh, motherfuck. Now get some slow-down going - yeah. Yeah. Feels real good." He draped his arms over his legs so that they pressed lightly against Karkat's back, testing.  
  
It was bizarre for him not be out-and-out terrifying in his certainties about what he could get his body to do; but they could talk about that later. Keeping things quiet felt like the best plan. That was how Gamzee had been with him the first time, and it had been one of those small things you can't expect, that you don't forget - hands laid on him with not a syllable's delay, accepting, admiring, affectionate. A lot of things.  
  
A big old thumb ran a warm line alongside his spine lumps. Slow going, of course, that was fine. It followed a firm curve to the juncture of leg and hip while Gamzee hissed, not even up to expletives as the bone unsheathed fully. The skin of his bulge stretched taut and smooth along Karkat's belly. The thumb slipped over his thigh to let Gamzee's broad hand cover it, and then—almost clench, almost claw at—but it didn't. He wouldn't, and it would be a miserable failure to let him. Even if it also felt _nice_.  
  
That was the problem with cross-quadrant shenanigans. Karkat pumped his hand on Gamzee's bone bulge and squeezed the soft tip, and the way Gamzee crooned made things seem generally nice enough.  
  
Gamzee relaxed enough to let go of his thigh and put his hand between Karkat's legs. Somehow Karkat arched _away_ , like the heaviness there had literally been lifted, and then he swore at himself and ground down, nook and bone and globes into Gamzee's palm.  
  
"Sit back. Let me get at you decent," Gamzee said, and Karkat slipped off to straddle his lap, legs spread wide over his much-broader hips. "That is the _way_ , bro."  
  
"First it's handing out imperatives like candy you got off the floor, now you're tacking on platitudes of validation. What, did you realise that nearly an entire sweep ago I declared my position as leader dropped?"  
  
"Sure. I'll be hammering the sponge out of you in a succession fight any minute," Gamzee said. "Now imagine me getting an arm-flex on and grinning like this joke's truly fucking hilarious, because I'm not up and letting go."  
  
"Okay." Yelling about excessive inanities could go on the to-do list for tomorrow. Meanwhile Gamzee was surer of himself, putting an arm around Karkat's waist and the other hand carefully providing slow-increase pressure on a knot of muscles above his bulge, making his breath waver on order, and his bone bulge slid out full length. "Okay."  
  
Grinning, Gamzee wriggled round on the pile to get leverage, then tipped Karkat bodily back. He bent closer - lips parting. Wait, fuck, wasn't kissing too redrom? More than the rest of this, somehow?  
  
And then like some vast cut of beastrump Gamzee's tongue descended and licked a tacky stripe across his face; Karkat howled. "Oh my unfucking god of boner kill!"  
  
The honest confusion on Gamzee's face could have caused death in the unwary. "Thought that was all hot with you."  
  
"Do I look like it is? Has any part of my reaction to any single thing about Terezi made it look on any level _like I was into that shit?_ "  
  
"Fuck yeah," Gamzee said. "But I guess you do mostly look like you enjoy absolutely candy-coated fuck-all." Solemn, even a little sad, he stroked Karkat's hair.  
  
Karkat took a deep breath and rolled his eyes with great emphasis. He pushed into the touch with what was, in fact, clear indication of enjoyment. Was he supposed to rampage cackling through life at the slightest provocation? No. He was already venting urges in an embarrassingly obvious way, going along with the clear flush of blood showing through his skin and a buoyant feeling growing in his chest that said: they were going to be all right. They were still going to be themselves. He was here for it and so was Gamzee, for real, and obviously, it could not be more obvious, that was enough.  
  
"Hey." Gamzee's expression went tender. "See? It worked."  
  
"Get your ludicrously vast grasping appendages on my globes with gentleness fit to bring centuries-old veterans to tears, before I die of shame at ever having started to associate with you. No licking!"  
  
They cuddled up in borderline palerom parody - but the point was that he didn't give a fuck about being close enough, he wanted to be _close_. Right at this moment it was just fine to have it happen this way, hips grinding together, the stretched skin of their bulges slipping along smooth. It was enough to get Gamzee panting, poor shaky motherfucker, but he still took care about the hand held round the curve of Karkat's ass, fingertips between his wide-spread legs stroking and rolling his shame globes.  
  
Karkat petted his chest and shoulders in what should have been the most infuriating move possible in a sexual context - short of face-slathering, oh my god - and Gamzee just held on. He seemed to keep reminding himself to ease his grip, and said, "Tell me if it's too tight."  
  
A smile had been sneaking up on Karkat for a few minutes. It caught him as relatively terrible things started seeming like good ideas, and he tilted to the side and bent a leg to get in a better position and said, "You tell me," slipping two fingers into Gamzee's nook.  
  
" _Filthy_ -mouthed motherfucker." Gamzee lost his voice on a high note. A shiver went up his abdomen, the skin-shudder of an animal shaking off water. "Worse joke than any of mine."  
  
"Consider it revenge for those. About time I made you pay." He added another finger, slipping in just as easily, and then crooked them, and Gamzee jerked so hard one knee came up to Karkat's shoulder. Rubbing the pads of his fingers against the walls made the muscle snap taut, and he pressed his knuckles into the slick, malleable clench and turned them slowly. It sounded like he was fucking killing him.  
  
In the bad way, and Gamzee's movements alternated between jerks and stiffened stillness. He whined and Karkat made an echo of the noise like the tail of the hurt had hooked into his own throat, and he pulled out as fast as he dared. Gamzee's neck was arched back over the curve of the pile so his face was obscured. "Hey—"  
  
"Yeah, okay." Gamzee patted his shoulders and said, "Better, best friend." He wriggled a little deeper into the pile and held Karkat, and then started rolling his hips again. "Fine now."  
  
Karkat rubbed open palms over Gamzee's chest, trying to soothe but a little frantic as the friction against his bulge picked up. "What was the - sorry," he said. "It seemed natural, last time you liked that, right."  
  
"Nothing more natural. But not now, I guess. It's too much. Stick to this..."  
  
"Seriously, just bulge? You sure?" Words were harder than they ought to be. Karkat drew up to see his face better. Gamzee bent towards him and started to smile at catching his eye, but Karkat still had to ask, "Are you sure you're okay?"  
  
"I'm _perfect_."  
  
Apparently that was meant to be reassuring.  
  
"Exactly all of what I am meant to be," Gamzee murmured, "but I guess it takes getting used to. All right, bro? All right, come on, it's all just all right..." The petting extended down to his globes again, and there, _that_ wasn't so gentle, that was serious. He shook as Gamzee squeezed, hot skin tightening up under hotter fingers. Two of Gamzee's fingertips dipped into his nook and that was all it took to stretch him wide and ready to sing praises to that particular blunt squarishness, when there was no other thing fingertips were even likely to be. He moved his hips down and around, hard as he could, again and again and—stopped short. With effort, he did not claw at Gamzee's chest.  
  
Time to say it. "Mm - I'm about to get my pail. You?"  
  
"Did you know," said Gamzee, a wavering cross between preoccupied and prayerful. "That you're feeling all of really fucking _right_ up inside here?"  
  
"Yeah, no. Not even the tip of your bulge is getting near any of my apertures, or you will get a brand new club for specibus storage as you kneel before me, cowed and broken. Get your fucking bucket, Gamzee."  
  
"Better scare you up a kismesis. Do you good." He snagged his bucket out of the air as his modus expelled it, keeping his other fingers busy (and thick and hot and _oh fuck_ ) in Karkat's nook. "Try and get your mad on about Sollux or some fucking thing. When you're grown some, though, nobody's got no fucking right to be this small... Maybe when you're not all motherfucking _soft_ like..." Like he couldn't even say, busy as he was drawing shuddering breaths as heat wound perceptibly up his bulge.  
  
They disentangled, Karkat getting his own bucket. He scrambled to jam the cool edges between his thighs, grabbing the spokes of a wheel to steady himself on. He heard the sounds beside him of liquid hitting metal and couldn't hold on, got his mind a little lost, finally just letting the fuck go.  
  
Their breathing was loud when they were done. Karkat found himself listening to that and all the sounds of resettling themselves, hardly looking up when he was given a corner of the sheet to wipe down with, or as he got one of the back-up sheets out of his sylladex and handed that over for Gamzee to wrap up in.  
  
He slid down to get his clothes and dressed, then inspected the gouged pile he sat on and contemplated being the kind of person who would get up and reshape it into something decent. He was that kind of person. Ask anybody. The idea was hilarious.  
  
"Got to do this more often if it puts that sweet smile between those little round nug lumps."  
  
"No way. No fucking way we do this again," Karkat said on reflex. "At least-" He craned back to look at Gamzee, and rediscovered that it wasn't an embarrassing thing to do. "Not that it was bad, or whatever - but I need to think about it first, okay? Then we can talk. And not do this again. Probably."  
  
Gamzee grinned. "Scared of red?"  
  
"Not talking about it!"  
  
"Thinking about black instead?" Gamzee laughed low in his abdomen, flopping back, and Karkat went still.  
  
He studied the mountain of reclining body. "Of course not."  
  
"Don't worry. Couldn't take me if you tried ever so motherfucking hard." Gamzee snickered dreamily at the ceiling.  
  
Karkat shoved himself up. "Why _the fuck_ would I try?" He put a hand round the curve of Gamzee's cheek. Not much of a curve; the pubescent fat-padding was gone, leaving the bone sharper under the skin.  
  
That soft look still came easily to his expression. "You wouldn't, I know nothing the way I know that." Then he snickered again. "But you really couldn't take me. Just saying."  
  
"Listen, Mr Apex Predator," Karkat said, "have a theoretical. Your answer will be graded on a scale of one to my-bucket-will-be-your-brunch: if, say, Strider gets your back up, the douchebag really ticks you off, exactly what would you do to him?"  
  
He almost mouthed it along with Gamzee, only going a little too fast for the easy, thoughtless sluggishness of his voice: "Anything I want—"  
  
"—'to do' is _not what I want to hear I was not fucking kidding_ , you clownbound shitpan!" Karkat hissed into his face. Gamzee had stopped short when the bucket decaptchalogued into Karkat's hand.  
  
"Bro, no." Even Gamzee could look shocked about some things.  
  
"Well, apparently you need emphasis! An illustrative aid to get how fucking awful what you just said was!" He would have gone on but Gamzee sat up, one hand steadying the arm holding the bucket, the other gently squeezing his shoulder.  
  
Karkat considered the bucket, hormonal imbalances, and lack of sleep. "Fine, that is fucking gross." He put it back in his sylladex. "But you have got to realise! First you go on about how cool and collected you are now, then you're ready to use Dave's teeth in a mosaic project at the first excuse?"  
  
Gamzee shook his head. "But I don't want to. See, that's the thing, I'm all in control. It's cool now, bro."  
  
"Then stop saying you're going to beat me up. Which you've done several times now."  
  
"Hey, that's fucking talk. Some kidding around doesn't mean—"  
  
"Fucking talk is generally intended to mean something. So stop saying it! You never would have used to!"  
  
Gamzee scowled. Not in the right way, where he looked like a cranky wiggler who hated thinking. The expression was ponderous and disappointed, in irritation at Karkat being slow. "You like getting bits of blackrom action up in your business. Don't pretend like that is not a fact."  
  
"Don't pretend that _you_ don't feel better because _we_ feel like lunch! If I can lose an instinctive iota of bowel control when you act like you can tell me what to do, I can sure as fuck believe you notice it each time. Like some urge to prove dominance, or knowledge that like this you already fucking have it. Just because the puberty roller coaster is over doesn't mean you don't have to watch yourself."  
  
"No. It's not like that," said Gamzee, probably thinking he sounded reasonable. Here was the cranky wiggler, finally. "Of course I'm feeling good about all of what I am now, it's natural. But it's not dangerous. I don't want to hurt anybody."  
  
"But you can and you know that, you're _made_ to know it. Just like you've been saying! Sure, you don't want to just fight anymore, but when you do feel the urge again? Especially since your reaction to the idea is to titter sweetly about how hard it would be to stop you!"  
  
Gamzee looked at him, then slowly away. His eyes flickered, tracking his thoughts.  
  
"You're not king of anything," Karkat said. "No matter what the mirror tells you."  
  
"No, that never—" Gamzee pushed up onto an elbow to look at him, startled, then trailed off. "Oh. Metaphor. Well, anyway. Nothing was saying anything. That's one thing you don't have to worry about." He lay back again and pulled a hand down over his face. "Be right about."  
  
"It won't last." Karkat said, sitting so he could keep a hand on Gamzee's shoulder. "Me being right, because that situation never has staying power. You riding the wave of superiority won't last either. It _better not_ , got it? Anyway, you're fresh out of the cocoon, some psychosomatic fuckery kind of makes sense. At least we no longer have to mire ourselves in the whole empire's unbearable memories and basest impulses when we sleep. That should help." He paused. "You won't pick up a single thing about what it's like to be Grand Highblood."  
  
"It's just, it wasn't even feeling anymore like that was what I had to be thinking of, it was... I thought I wasn't supposed to be like... Just such a mess as always."  
  
"Here's a revelation for you. 'Growing up' doesn't mean increasing your altitude enough to treat the rest of us to the ant's eye view of your cavernous sniff funnels. Did you think it was going to be that easy?"  
  
Big, billowing lungs put force behind Gamzee's sigh. "Nice to believe."  
  
"The adjective you're looking for is 'stupid'. If you weren't so stupid you would have learnt that much by now."  
  
"Shut up," said Gamzee, and opened his arms. A little snappish anger _and_ easy forgiveness for Karkat cranking thoughtless fuckery out of his chitinous wind tunnel like it was his real mutation. They curled around each other - like a parody, ha, and a lot more like a need.  
  
Eventually they settled more comfortably, side by side. Karkat's eyes were staying shut for longer, and he was tentatively letting them.  
  
Gamzee seemed okay with it. When he spoke his voice was set to low and lower, steady in its softness. Soothing. "It'll be your turn soon. Getting to be growing."  
  
"Would like to get it the fuck over with." He hoped he'd be next. Even Terezi. So long as Kanaya and Gamzee weren't the only two adults.  
  
"So what do you think of who you're going to up and be?"  
  
"Precedent says, I die young and leave a whole planet scared to say my name." That had basically been a childhood ambition. It was nice that his genetic double had managed. (And then, naturally, the suffering.) "Maybe I'll switch it. Live forever, nothing about me and my name bothers anyone."  
  
"So, no downsides either way."  
  
"Nope." Karkat snorted. "But hey, that was a motherfucking joke, so you know. Fuck ancestor destiny stuff, seriously. I'll just be me. That's all."  
  
"Oh. Huh." The sounds seemed to accompany the square of the idea being swivelled to fit the round hole functioning as Gamzee's think pan. "Yeah?"  
  
Sometimes Karkat wished he possessed Kanaya's talent of her more shithive moments, and could shed real tears just to be sufficiently sarcastic. He went straightforward instead. "Gamzee, why would that surprise you?"  
  
"Would've figured a right riotous motherfucker such as yourself would know he's only going to make himself to be better."  
  
He opened his eyes; Gamzee shrugged. Honest confusion again, working a crease back into existence over the bridge of his nose.  
  
Future Karkat had always left the impression of being as bad as the past ones. Future Karkat was somebody he avoided thinking of for as long as he didn't have to do another memo, he had dream bubble Karkats to ragefroth at, and this rock was hurtling past stars and dust and nothing. Now he'd spent weeks with concrete knowledge of how Future Karkat was heading at him at the speed of inevitability, and _now_ , as in this minute, it seemed like it was worth thinking that a little further ahead of Future Karkat might be 'better'.  
  
"Lead my way," said Gamzee. "Maybe I can live up to example."  
  
"And I can take yours. Not worry about this too much." Karkat shut his eyes tight, feeling like there was a betrayal of good sense going on. The optimism persisted.  
  
"Yeah, right." Gamzee enfolded the top of Karkat's head in a hand, and tickled the top of one ear presumably because he could. "Thank you. Keeping a watch. Holding on," he said by-the-way, each word dropped awkward and separate, which probably meant he was going to write reams in Trollian soon. At worst it would rhyme, and reference seventeen different species of slam poet shit that Karkat might have to ask Dave to decode.  
  
Karkat flopped his hands in defeat. "Thanks for your continued existence. Thinking up alternatives was a problem for me."  
  
"Always could make a party just by motherfucking showing up." Gamzee moved his hand slowly down, stroking over Karkat's neck and shoulders.  
  
In a last burst of vaguely cohesive thought, Karkat said, "We'll get there." Which was still at a relatively high end of the random scale, so of course it made fucking perfect sense to Gamzee.  
  
"I guess we've got to. Guess I want to." A soft noise. "I guess I _can_..."  
  
"Philosophy to continue after sleep," Karkat said, half in a memory of the extraordinary bullshit they could spin together and half planning the fullness of the following waking cycle. "Be ready."  
  
There was an answer, and knowing himself, which he constantly had to, he probably even replied to it. He hoped he was saving the serious shit and the seriously sappy shit for later; all questions and continued thank yous. It didn't matter if he kept it for later or not, though, not the slightest bit, because there would be a tomorrow to tell Gamzee these things in. They were getting there.

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to see Karkat and Gamzee exactly as I pictured them in this story, Apologija kindly did some beautiful magic and took the image from my brain: <http://kurlozmakara.tumblr.com/post/26047433234/born-for-new-things-this-is-inspired-by-the>. (Thank you again!)


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